Justification
by AutumnsFey
Summary: Sequel to 'Damnation': Reactions vary, but for Tsuna's former guardians, there is only one question left to ask, when the sky turns grey and life bleeds away into agony. But none of them is ready to face it. Sadly, the world goes on, and in the end ... they don't have a choice.


_**I tried.**_

 _ **I really tried.**_

 _ **It was never my motive to trap you. Never.**_

 _ **Did you call my name, when the world was about to end?**_

 _Did you wish to see me once more, when everything you held dear burned down into nothing?_

 _Did you see me standing out there, watching over you in the darkest night, when winds howled and snow covered everything in the mantle of a white winter wonderland? Did you see me, looking in from the outside?_

 _Did you know, that even when you snub me, when you call me useless, a failure, a disappointment, I will never regret being there for you?_

 _In a perfect world, you would call me a friend._

 _In this world, you call me a mistake._

 _And did you know, that like always, I will smile and take it?_

 _Because you are my friend._

 _ **Maybe you won't believe me, maybe I have let you down so much that you won't even read this, but if you do, then I only want to say that I'm sorry.**_

 **They called it on a Thursday morning.**

The sky was grey.

And the tears it wouldn't shed, a grieving mother sacrificed.

 **They announced it on a Thursday afternoon.**

The sky was grey.

And among the glass, and blood, and rage, among the destruction a disbelieving wailing father left in his wake, a Famiglia was thrown into a reality that promised naught but uncertainty and fear. An empire crumbling to ashes in the face of its mistakes.

 **They were informed on a Friday morning.**

The sky was grey.

And it was disbelief, it was sorrow and shame that flowed through the air, that permitted a sacred place of learning as the solemn voice of their principal told them of their class mate's death at his own hand, a class mate most of the student body had ridiculed and abused from day one. Not many but the most unrepentant would be able to look themselves in the eye for a long time to come.

 _ **I'm sorry for taking you down with me.**_

 **Yamamoto Takeshi could not believe it.** It couldn't be true. It just couldn't. Tsuna …

Tsuna wouldn't have done that.

The boy who had saved his life, who had saved Takeshi from himself, wouldn't have done the very thing he had spared the young baseball player from. Tsuna wouldn't have killed himself.

Takeshi had noticed that the other boy had seemed a bit down, especially after they had returned the rings, but he had told them that he understood. And it wasn't anything against Tsuna. But Takeshi had more to think about then himself, something his sky had taught him, and he had taken the advice seriously. He needed to protect his father, even against his friends, and being involved with Tsuna … as much as he was loyal to the other boy and promised to play the Mafia game with him, it had become too dangerous. He had needed to cut those ties before he was consumed.

Tsuna had said he understood.

But Tsuna would have also never betrayed Takeshi.

… not like Takeshi had.

He looked up at the sky, seeing the endless grey. No sun, no rain, no cloud, even lightning, storm and mist were absent. The sky … was abandoned.

Takeshi felt the first tears fall as he looked down from the school roof. A roof upon which Tsuna at the beginning of their friendship had saved his life.

A friendship he had destroyed.

Blue eyes closed helplessly.

 _Was it worth it?_

 _ **I'm sorry for being a bad friend.**_

 **Gokudera Hayato didn't know what to think.** He was Mafia-born and Mafia-raised. He was no stranger to death. He knew that humans came and went as they pleased, he knew not to get attached …

But this one time, he made a mistake. He became attached to someone who didn't share his ambitions, and he became disillusioned.

Sawada Tsunayoshi had saved him from his own idiocy, and like Mafia conduct told him to, he became the younger boys subordinate, knowing that the helpless brunette was to be the Vongola heir. It was a prestigious position, and even in defeat, Hayato saw an opportunity – if he played his cards right, he could rise from a freshman hitman and Mafia bastard to the right hand of the Vongola Decimo. He only needed to follow the other boy and become friends.

He didn't plan on actually forming a friendship, but it happened, and he only saw it as bonus.

At least until he recognized that somehow, he had built himself an image of a person that didn't exist. He had put Tsuna on a pedestal, and the older they became, the more he saw how much dream and reality differed. And he couldn't deny the truth any longer: Tsuna was too soft. He was too merciful.

He wanted to join someone more ambitious. Someone with a brighter future. He didn't want to follow someone who was so … content with simple things.

There was only one solution: Hayato gave back his storm ring.

Tsuna had only smiled understandingly and told him that he would always be there for him.

So where was he now?!

Because try as he might, Hayato could find no way how the other boy could be there for him while being dead. Oh, he understood why the brunette had done so. He knew that Vongola wouldn't have let them go without a fight, with their heir defenceless – but they could have talked.

He was ambitious, but never was his ambition this!

He never wanted his friend to sacrifice himself for Hayato's and the other guardians' freedom!

Damn it! Damn it, Tsuna, why did you have to worm yourself into my heart?! Why couldn't you just stay some useless idiot?!

He never wanted one of the corpses on his way to be that of a friend, and that was what Tsuna was.

A friend.

In the end, all he could do was swallow his pain and anger and try to blend out the traitorous voice in the back of his head. But it wouldn't stay silent.

He rubbed his blood-shot eyes.

It was the question, wasn't it?

 _Was it worth it?_

 _ **I'm sorry for all the pain, and fear and despair I've brought.**_

 **Sasagawa Ryohei hit the sand bag, his fists stained with blood.** The principals voice still echoing in his ears, his message staying on replay.

 _I regret to inform you that Sawada Tsunayoshi is dead. I regret to inform you that Sawada Tsunayoshi is dead. I regret to inform you that Sawada Tsunayoshi is dead. I regret to inform you that Sawada Tsunayoshi is dead. I regret to inform you that Sawada Tsunayoshi is dead …_

His fists swung forward and the bag exploded, sand and blood mingling as they dripped down. Ryohei sagged against the destroyed exercise instrument, his eyes closed, and sweat trickling down his face.

 _' Nii-san, thank you so so much!'_

 _' Nii-san saved us.'_

 _' Nii-san, you are one of us!'_

He had tried to do the right thing. He had tried to protect his family, his parents, his little sister … he had only wanted to protect them from the Mafia, from the dangers he had been exposed to. He had only tried to …

 _' Sawada, call me Nii-san, to the extreme!'_

With a roar, he punched the mangled sandbag and fell forwards, his knees collapsing beneath him.

Tears mingled with sweat as a bitter taste invaded his mouth.

 _Was it worth it?_

 _ **I'm sorry for not being enough.**_

 **Dokuro Chrome loved Rokudo Mukuro.**

He was her master; her mentor and friend, her big brother and crush, her family. He was her world. After being abandoned by her parents, after the accident that left her crippled, she had given up … only to be given hope by the older boy.

She had only become one half of Vongola Decimo's Mist guardian because Mukuro-sama wanted her to … but along the way, she had come to care for Sawada Tsunayoshi. She had come to care for the strange boy with the too big heart, and it had broken her heart a little when Mukuro-sama had wanted her to return the Mist ring, but she had complied. She had done as Mukuro-sama told her, like always.

Only this time … this time she wasn't sure she had done the right thing. It had been what her master had told her. It had to be true.

Even if it broke Bossu's heart. But Bossu had said he understood, that he was happy for her and Mukuro-sama, that he wished them the best … so why?

Why had he done that?

Chrome didn't know what to think anymore, all she knew was despite obeying Mukuro-sama, despite accepting the consequences of her actions …

… her heart hurt. It hurt so much.

 _Was it worth it?_

 _ **I'm sorry for being a failure.**_

 **Rokudo Mukuro became one half the Vongola Decimo's guardians, despite his innate hate for all things Mafia, for one reason only:** To protect his two subordinates and to get into a position that would enable him to burn the Mafia into nothingness.

What better way than to possess the Vongola Decimo?

So he took the position of Vongola Mist and helped the little heir along. It was a bloody world, and someone as naïve and innocent as that boy had no reason to be there – it only cemented his belief that the Mafia was a heartless horrendous affliction upon the world, and that it needed to be destroyed. If children could be used like that, if souls could be broken and innocence ripped away, than the origin of those sins needed to be eradicated. He desired nothing more than to burn it to the ground.

He had hoped to see Tsunayoshi fight, to see him win against the demands of the Vongola, but like so many before him, he succumbed. He managed to keep the most inert parts of his being intact, but in the grand scheme, that meant nothing. And it only showed Mukuro that no one but he could cure the world of the poison called Mafia.

After the first guardians returned their rings, Mukuro told Chrome to do the same. He thought it would be enough, easy to wash his hands of the boy. That child didn't matter, he was useless to Mukuro's plans, would never gain the ruthlessness to proof of use. No. This was better.

This way, he didn't need to witness another child become lost in a sea of darkness and blood and he could search for a better target, one that had more promise.

That was what he told himself.

Maybe it was the right decision.

But ...

 _Was it worth it?_

 _ **I'm sorry for not protecting you when it mattered.**_

 **Bovino Lambo was a cry-baby. It was a fact.**

He was easily afraid. He hid behind his mask of bravado.

But for the first time since his own family had told him to kill Reborn or not return home at all, he felt like he was part of a family. Nii-chan had taken him in, and Mama and I-Pin and Fuuta loved him, too. He was at home.

So when Hayato told him to give the ring back, that it would mean he wouldn't be in those scary situations anymore, he did so. And Nii-chan was so very happy, he told Lambo that this was the right decision, and that he wanted Lambo to live a long and happy life, that Lambo needed to be strong for Mama, Fuuta and I-Pin.

But Lambo didn't want it this way! He didn't want …

… he didn't want to lose his Nii-chan, the Nii-chan who played, and laughed, and had fun with Lambo, and who cared enough for Lambo to scold, and hold, and comfort him. Without Nii-chan, home wasn't home.

It was empty.

Lambo wanted his Nii-chan back, he wanted things to return to how they always were, but his door remained closed, and there was no Nii-chan who came to wipe away his tears and give him a smile and candy. And … and Nii-chan wouldn't come back.

Later, so much later, he would ask himself if this future he would live ...

 _Was it worth it?_

 _ **I'm sorry for all the time you wasted on this.**_

 **Hibari Kyouya swung his tonfas, steely eyes watching coldly as the cement dented beneath the power of his hits. He turned, crouching, and attacked again.** And again. And again.

It didn't help.

Why didn't he do more? Why didn't he say anything?

He had seen the Omnivore as weak, had seen him return to his herbivorous ways more and more with each ring the other Herbivores returned.

Kyouya had seen that something wasn't right, but he had mistakenly thought that it wasn't his business as long as the peace in Namimori remained untouched.

What a fool he had been.

Never before had a student of Namimori died, and now, this statement when uttered would be a lie. As often as he had threatened to bite Herbivores to death, he had never done so, but this time, he had played a part …

… in driving a small animal into death.

Kyouya gritted his teeth and attacked with renewed anger.

 _Was it worth it?_

 _ **And most of all, I'm so very sorry for disappointing you.**_

 **Black cars. Black suits. Black guns.**

The Sawada residence was swarmed with well-wishers of the darker variant. Hidden steel, dangerous eyes. The Vongola Famiglia had come to pay respect to their late Decimo Heir.

Once more, a young Vongola had died before his time.

This time, it was even more grievous. This time, Vongola had driven their own heir into death at his own hands. For the sake of his guardians, he had chosen to end his life, to give them freedom, and as angry as Timoteo and his guardians, as the Vongola Famiglia Members and their allies were, they would honour Sawada Tsunayoshi's sacrifice.

It showed just how devoted this sky was.

Endlessly.

 _ **As dumb and blind as I know I am, I also know that taking back the rings won't be enough. Not to save and free you. I understand why you did it, and I support you. All I ever wanted was for the people I hold closest to my heart to be happy, no matter how.**_

 **Sawada Iemitsu was a man who knew how to prioritize.**

He was a man who could make sacrifices.

But this was no sacrifice. It was a mistake.

And the price …

 _The price was his only son's life._

 **Sitting alone in the morgue, Iemitsu stared at his baby boy's face.**

He looked so … peaceful. As if he was just asleep, taking a long long nap. But death never let those it had taken go, and Iemitsu had stared to often into the peaceful faces of those lost forever to not recognize them. But in all his arrogance, in his desperation for the Famiglia he loved to continue, he had given them the one person he was not willing to sacrifice.

He had always been prepared to live with the blame of Nana's death, had feared the call that his wife was dead, had disappeared, been kidnapped or tortured; broken. Gone. But the thought of Tsunayoshi, of his Tuna-fishy being gone forever, to never see him again, hear that high shriek, see him laughing and smiling, scolding his guardians or embracing them; to never again be called Tou-san by his own son, by the baby he held just a few seconds after he had been born, the child he had promised the world …

It was unbearable.

It wasn't worth it.

Everything Tsuna had accomplished since Iemitsu had forced him into accepting the position a Decimo, wasn't worth his son's life. Let the Famiglia go down in Flames if it returned his baby to him.

… but it wouldn't. He knew. Nothing could return the dead.

A bitter smile graced his lips as he leaned down and placed one last kiss on the pale cold forehead.

No parent should outlive their children.

If this … could be called life.

 _ **I love you, Tsuna.**_

 _I love you, so much, my baby._

 _I love you, never doubt, despite all my mistakes and flaws, that I love you more than anything. From the moment you were born, you were my reason to keep going on._

 _I miss you so much, my beautiful little baby boy._

 _ **This is the only way I can ensure that you will be happy.**_

 **The sky is dark. A storm is brewing. Rain thunders down.**

Hayato closed his eyes, feeling the drops break on his face. Somehow …

He had imagined everything to be better. His future to lock brighter, freed from a boss with no ambition. But in no scenario he had calculated had it ended like this.

And Hayato knew why.

He had underestimated the one ambition his sky held about any other: Keeping those he cherished safe. With any method he could. Without reason, without sense.

It was so obvious, in hindsight.

Hayato sighed as a body sat next to him.

They didn't say anything. There was nothing left to say. In the wake of their mistakes, there was less than nothing they could say. He shook his head, the dripping unlit cigarette slipping from between his lips, and laid his head back, green eyes looking into the sky that was once so familiar, so comforting, only to see it nearly gone … torn and drowned in its weather's.

How ironic.

The wide and vast sky had succumbed to the weathers and lost itself.

He didn't acknowledge the slender calloused hand that gripped his shoulder. But the baseball idiot knew nevertheless that he was thankful for not being alone.

The more time went by …

… the more the truth became apparent.

This was a mistake they couldn't recover from.

 _ **Please tell Kaa-chan that I love her. And tell Reborn how thankful I am for all he did for me.**_

 **Sawada Nana stared transfixed at the bento before her.**

A bento with all of Tsuna's favourites. Her little boy would be so happy -

…

She blinked.

Would have been happy. Her little boy … would have been happy.

Her vision blurred.

It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

Tsuna should be with her, he should smile at her and tell her how much he loved her, how he would never leave her. Wake up to late, crash in the bathroom, hurry along his breakfast, take his bento and hasten to school. He would come home laughing, hiding the bad grade he no doubt got again, and just be her Tsu-chan. She just wanted this … she wanted their life's to go on like they always did.

But they never would again. Nothing would be right again.

How could life go on without Tsu-chan?

Nana blinked.

Her thumb bleed sluggishly.

It … just didn't seem to matter.

She continued staring at the bento.

It didn't matter.

It would matter again when Tsuna came home. She only needed to wait.

She would see her baby again.

 **Reborn hadn't said a word.**

He had kept silent since the night his charge had been discovered. Kept his silence through accusation, through discussions and through questions. His eyes were blank, his expression unreadable. It was as if he had turned to stone, an unmoving stature.

Except for his hands.

His hands were bathed in blood.

It dripped down. Drip. Drip. Drip.

He never thought it would bother him. Reborn was the greatest hitman in the world, nothing could faze him. After training the Cavallone heir and the Vongola Decimo heir he thought he had been faced with the most impossible odds … until that call. Until …

Until he had failed.

The hitman who succeeded in every job, had failed. Had failed to see the guardians approaching desertion. Had failed to read his charges mood correctly. Had failed to save the young boy he had raised into a man from the deep seated self-sacrificing the boy had never outgrown.

He had failed to read the sign and had paid the price for it.

Reborn didn't deign the heatedly discussing Mafiosi with his attention. What could they say that was of interest to him?

He had already failed the only sky he would have given himself to after Luce.

As tutor. As protector. As mentor. As father figure. As friend. As …

Once more, he had failed his chosen sky.

 _ **I didn't expect our story to end like this, but maybe it was always destined to be this way. I don't regret meeting you, I only regret not being enough.**_

 **Sasagawa Kyoko burrowed her face into Lambo's afro, her tears absorbed by the black curls.** The little boy had thrown himself at her, as soon as she had entered the Sawada household, his thin arms slung around her slender form as he buried his face in her T-shirt. It took only seconds for the first hot tears to soak the blue fabric, and once she felt the wet stains, her own tears began to fall. She felt her Nii-san's arms encircle both herself and little Lambo.

Kyoko shuddered as she heard the wailing sobs the child in her arms let loose. Sawada-san didn't appear, like normally, to comfort Lambo, but Kyoko really couldn't blame the woman – she had just lost her only child. The idea of losing you own child … Kyoko felt sick.

It already hurt too much to lose Tsuna-kun, the clumsy silly boy who always made her day brighter and no matter what, managed to turn every frown upside down. She knew that reality hadn't hit her yet, Kyoko was well aware that once it did, it would hit only so much harder. But she was so used to staying strong, for her brother, to hide her worry and sorrow, that it was nowadays a reflex, much like it was Nii-san's reflex too say extreme and Tsuna's to say that he was fine. But when she was alone, she would grieve. She would be allowed to be weak. Now, she needed to be strong. Tears weren't a weakness, and so she allowed herself to cry while still being there for others.

But once it hit …

Once it hit that one of her best friends, a boy she may have with time felt even more for, was forever gone, that he choose to leave them all behind …

That somehow, he felt like killing himself was the answer …

Kyoko took a deep breath and steeled herself.

There would be time to fall apart. Now wasn't it.

Now she needed to do what Tsuna would have done.

Stay strong for her family.

 _ **Thank you.**_

 **Kyouya fought, and fought. It was all he could do.**

Tomorrow, the little animal, the herbivorous omnivore would be … interred.

His sky would be gone, burrowed in the ground. Bound.

It was a … disgrace.

The sky should never be bound. He should be free.

He gritted his teeth, a ferocious glint entering his eyes as he fought harder, pushing his body past humans' limits.

The sky had been bound, but the clouds never would be.

He was a carnivore, and the only omnivore who could ever hold his attention, who could hold his loyalty was dead. There was nothing and no one keeping him in check. He was limitless.

The whip grazed his cheek, leaving a bloody scratch.

Kyouya grinned bloodthirstily.

Dino returned it coldly.

 _ **Thank you for being my friends.**_

 **Mukuro loathed himself for admitting, in hindsight, that he had seen the signs. Seen them and played them off as nothing. If he hadn't …**

He had seen how his sky had started to neglect himself.

He had noticed how his sky accepted the beginnings of their leaving.

He had seen the sadness and resignation in those expressive eyes.

He had noticed how he his sky had lost the will to fight for himself.

He had seen the pain as, one after another, they left him alone.

He had felt those beautiful warm welcoming flames slowly suffocate beneath a depression that, in retrospect, had nothing to do with teenage angst.

If Mukuro had been a stronger man, if he had been less of a selfish man, he would have not only seen but acknowledged the signs and done something. But he hadn't. And as much as he still insisted that his only reason for becoming a guardian was to use and possess Tsunayoshi, in his heart he knew the truth.

He didn't stay only for the purpose of achieving his goals easier.

He stayed because in Tsunayoshi he had found a home.

His sky.

A friend.

 _ **Knowing you made everything worth it.**_

 **The day of the funeral came.**

Not one of them wanted it to.

It was time to put their lost sky in the ground, and it couldn't have been more difficult. There wasn't a single eye dry, not one heart unfeeling.

Row upon row of well-wishers, of Famiglia members, of friends and family attended. A sea of black, of sorrow and sadness. In the first row, so small and broken, sat the grieving mother, trembling hands pressed into her lab. Next to her, the mourning father, dishevelled and so tired, eyes rimmed red and staring at the flower-surrounded picture of his son.

No one could look at them.

No one dared to say anything as the too small coffin was carefully lowered into the ground and the mother broke down, her wails echoing in the silent graveyard as her husband held her shaking form, tears trickling down his weary face.

No one approached them.

They had no right to.

 _ **The priest spoke about a lively boy. About a boy who had a bright but difficult life.**_

 _He spoke about the joyful laughter of a toddler, of a son who loved his parents, who followed his mother with a big smile and always was so happy when his hard-working father returned home._

 _He spoke of the fear, pain and insecurities of a student who failed academically but succeeded as a human being, who withstood his peers taunts and torments and after finding himself, only came out stronger._

 _He spoke of the sweet crush of a middle school student, of his escapades and the place he slowly but steadily carved for himself in the hearts of other._

 _He spoke of a young man who cherished his friends and family above everything else, who never gave up and always came through when it mattered._

 _His words spoke of a person who deserved more than life ever gave him._

 **In the end, none of the guardians needed to speak it out loud, because they all knew it.**

They had known since that grey Friday morning when they had been informed for the first time.

But looking at the grieving parents, at the friends, the family, the acquaintances who had come to pay their last respect, they finally voiced, even if only in the hidden depths of their minds.

It was their actions that gave their so often troubled sky the last push to welcome death at his own hands.

And in hindsight, all their nice little reasons, all their sensible justifications ...

 **It wasn't worth it.**

 _ **Thank you.**_

~ The End ~


End file.
